The family of a troubled teenager, who filmed himself on a webcam committing suicide from a drugs overdose, yesterday condemned the broadcast of his death and the many viewers who egged him on.

Abraham K Biggs, 19, from Pembroke Pines, Florida, posted a suicide note in which he wrote, “I hate myself and I hate living,” before taking a concoction of pills. He then broadcast his death on the internet.

“It’s unimaginable,” said his father Abraham Biggs Sr, a maths professor, weeping outside their home. “I don’t want to watch what is out there. It’s wrong that it was allowed to happen.

“There seems to be a lack of control as to what people put out on the internet. There’s a lot of garbage out there that should not be, and unfortunately, this was allowed to happen,” he said.

Around 1,500 viewers witnessed Bigg’s death on the website Justin.tv but most of them seem to have thought he was joking and it was 12 hours before the police were alerted.

“It didn’t have to be,” said the victim’s sister Rosalind. “They got hits, they got viewers, nothing happened for hours.”

According to investigators, some online viewers urged Biggs to take more drugs to quicken his death. One blogger wrote, “instant Darwinism”, to which a fellow viewer replied, “nicely put”. Only when police entered Biggs’s bedroom by smashing down the door did the jibes stop.

Biggs’s father said that his son was being treated for depression. Natasha Mazzolino, a close friend, said Biggs “was the most awesome person I ever met”. But, she added, he struggled with feelings of inadequacy and was upset with the relationship with his girlfriend and his parents’ divorce four years ago.

On his MySpace page, Biggs bade farewell to his friends. “I’m a good-hearted guy, I care a lot about my friends and my family and I would do almost anything for them,” he wrote. “I’m the kind of person that is there for my friends regardless of time. I tell all my friends even if it’s 3-4am and they need someone to talk to, that they can always call and I’ll never turn them away.”

A computer user who watched the lingering death said that after swallowing the pills, Biggs appeared to go to sleep but was breathing for several hours, while others cracked jokes online, apparently in the belief that they were watching a hoax.

However, the reaction to Biggs’s death was said by some to be akin to a crowd at a public hanging.

“The social web tends to create a sideshow atmosphere, like public executions in the 1700s,” said David Griner, a social media strategist.

“The anonymity and lack of personal connection bring out the worst in people.”

Montana Miller, an assistant professor of popular culture, said Biggs’s public suicide was not surprising, given the way teenagers chronicle many aspects of their lives on social networking sites.

“If it’s not recorded or documented then it doesn’t even seem worthwhile,” she said. “For today’s generation it might seem, ‘What’s the point of doing it if everyone isn’t going to see it?’”

Tributes poured into social networks from Biggs’s teenage friends, posting pictures of themselves with him during happier times.

There was also a sense of remorse from some online users, with many viewers retracting their posts. “We may not all agree that what Abraham did was the right thing, or a brave thing, but we can all admit it’s something that could have, and should have, been prevented,” said a blogger on one of the forums he used.

Another said: “I just don’t get it - you people are sick in the head or something.”

In a statement, the CEO of Justin.tv, Michael Seibel, said: “We regret that this has occurred and want to respect the privacy of the broadcaster and his family during this time.”

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